A scientific crossroad: Carey's influence in affecting shallow water acoustics research after the cold war

Before the end of cold war most of the U.S. Navy's underwater acoustics research was focused on deep water. However, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a shift toward shallow water environments was emphasized. With a body of knowledge from Ewing, Worzel, and Pekeris to Weston, Bill Carey took it upon himself to test a set of realistic goals in understanding complicated shallow water acoustics problems. His major field experiments in 1988–1993 produced results directing the community to address the issue of bottom attenuation and array coherence in a much more serious manner. In addition, due to his work, the community also considered the important problem of the effects of the water column, such as those associated with internal waves, on the acoustic propagation in these regions. This paper presents a summary of Carey's research in shallow water acoustics in light of the broader picture of the community's progress and direction in this field.